I'm pretty sure it was the cheapest working gun there, just $29 more and I could have had a Mosin Nagant from '92.Yea the bullets weren't what I expected them to look like, just short and fat.Thanks for the advice, i'll hopefully get it to a gun store in due time. I took the barrel off and it didn't seem to look too bad.Also sadly all I could afford were primers so apparently its just an "adult cap gun" currently.

You guys seem quite knowledgeable about this topic, any cleaning supplies/lube/derusting solution you would recommend for a black powder muzzle loader?Is there any advantage between Pyrodex or Triple 7, or loose powder vs pellets?

Tue Aug 07, 2012 4:46 am

Rook

Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:46 pmPosts: 425Location: California

Re: Gun Topic #Bang bAng baNg banG

Well, Triple Seven and Pyrodex were both a product of the same company. However, they're both very corrosive. I would suggest Blackhorn 209. It's almost non-corrosive, low-fouling, and is pretty consistent when it comes to generating gas. It's also won't really absorb water, or at least I think it doesn't. I don't really remember for sure.

Well i'm going to a gun shop today to have them look at it.Thanks for the recommendation. I don't know anything about black powder and the manual recommended those two powders(and Pyrodex is engraved in the barrel) so i'll look into the Blackhorn.I still haven't found out why smokeless powder apparently causes the gun to explode yet. Hope it can take down farm vermin effectively, my friend would probably appreciate that.

You have a recommended amount of powder you should put into the chamber, put in too much and it explodes. Now, seating the bullet is important, you want to make sure it is at the back of the chamber competly, I recommend taking your ramrod and a sharpie, and mark positions on it when the gun is loaded, and unloaded, so you have visual aid. Now, for the tighter seal get some wadding, they sell swathes of cloth for that reason.

You always add the cloth. Without it, the bullet is loose in the barrel, they have to be smaller than the barrels themselves, or else it would damage the gun. And you said you bought a .50, why would you start out with those? Don't use ammo that's not the proper caliber for your gun.

OKAY guys, good news, I have just bought (mostly) a Ted Williams 30-06 bolt action rifle, it is a beautiful gun people, sadly, the Dragonov they had on the rack was $900, and don't worry, it is demilitarized so it is eagle to own, plus its a Romanian copy. I'll post pictures when the gun is paid off.

Dang it, my parents think and act like Airgun is some kinda illegal weapon and only permitted in range. seriously who would go to range to shoot a airgun? they said they won't let me have one even when I get to live by myself. pffff

Last edited by 0404 on Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Risk-- significant risk, even-- is present in every activity you and I do. That's enough to make a person want to stay in bed, but several hundred people in the US smother in their sheets every year, so even that option is hardly a solution. We earthlings don't live in a rubber-room world, and such an existence (if it were possible) wouldn't be a whole lot of fun anyways. Life itself is the ultimate risk, carrying with it a one hundred percent chance of death. So I say live life while you're here and do what you love, so long as you're smart about it.

Bottom line is, so long as you follow even ONE of the Four Rules of gun safety, nobody gets hurt. Just as with every other thing you do in life, it's pointless to try and avoid risk altogether... tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year in America alone. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't drive; it means you should drive safely, defensively, while awake and alert, etc. It's the same idea with shooting (and I think I can say this, what with having put a few thousand rounds downrange through dozens of different guns and all).

The bottom line is, a firearm has no level of inherent danger-- it is an inert mechanical object, effectively a chemically-operated power tool. Now users, on the other hand, can be and are very unsafe. But on the other OTHER hand, far more can be and are very safe.

As to need... many people can, and do, and will need guns (side note: it's very hard to know that before the fact, so I say better safe than sorry). But regardless, as long as texascat follows the laws of his jurisdiction and behaves safely, I can't see any reason his desire to have a firearm should be denied--irrespective of what anybody else perceives as his "need."

Risk-- significant risk, even-- is present in every activity you and I do. That's enough to make a person want to stay in bed, but several hundred people in the US smother in their sheets every year, so even that option is hardly a solution. We earthlings don't live in a rubber-room world, and such an existence (if it were possible) wouldn't be a whole lot of fun anyways. Life itself is the ultimate risk, carrying with it a one hundred percent chance of death. So I say live life while you're here and do what you love, so long as you're smart about it.

Bottom line is, so long as you follow even ONE of the Four Rules of gun safety, nobody gets hurt. Just as with every other thing you do in life, it's pointless to try and avoid risk altogether... tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year in America alone. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't drive; it means you should drive safely, defensively, while awake and alert, etc. It's the same idea with shooting (and I think I can say this, what with having put a few thousand rounds downrange through dozens of different guns and all).

The bottom line is, a firearm has no level of inherent danger-- it is an inert mechanical object, effectively a chemically-operated power tool. Now users, on the other hand, can be and are very unsafe. But on the other OTHER hand, far more can be and are very safe.

As to need... many people can, and do, and will need guns (side note: it's very hard to know that before the fact, so I say better safe than sorry). But regardless, as long as texascat follows the laws of his jurisdiction and behaves safely, I can't see any reason his desire to have a firearm should be denied--irrespective of what anybody else perceives as his "need."

GunRacer(It's good to be back!)

Well, first, welcome back man.

I have to agree with you in what you said.

And the users part is the thing sometimes I worry about (maybe im being paranoid).

if someday you have to use a gun to defend yourself, because a turn of the destiny you get shot with your own gun, or if this one has some manufacturing defect or the ammo gets stuck because the machines werent properly calibrated or something.

(I know the possibilities, as you say, are as high as the ones that are that the engine of your new car blows up out of nowhere or so but yeah I still think about it every now and then)

_________________A moment of enlightenment...and it's gone

Sun Sep 02, 2012 7:13 pm

DingoVolf

Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2012 12:17 amPosts: 154Location: It was unwise to wake the 3-eyed cat, but we did it anyways, and now look at us. Whatever you do,

Re: Gun Topic #Bang bAng baNg banG

Gunracer: Lasers. :D

And yes, life has inherent danger, but unlike most of your examples, guns are specifically designed to disable people. Their core purpose is to damage living things. Sure they're a hoot to shoot, to target practice and use in sporting, and I personally find them very fascinating machines (and own 3 myself), but I just can't see them as simple tools - their symbolism, use, and purpose is much more complicated than that.

Having said that, I also think responsible, safe gun ownership is a good thing. Understanding their proper use and care can instill a solid sense of responsibility and consequences. Texcat, I hope you can get to a point where you can responsibly enjoy guns, but part of understanding the respect a firearm needs may require you to respect the wishes of your parents, at least until you set out on your own under your own rules. :)

And the users part is the thing sometimes I worry about (maybe im being paranoid).

Somewhat, but I've heard of some absolutely horrific gun handling on public ranges. This may sound a little odd, but I think at least a basic rifle/pistol/shotgun safety and handling course should be available in public high schools, which would probably go a long way towards reducing such incidents. But they don't really happen much at all in the first place... I mean, idiot drivers are way more of a threat.

legendario13 wrote:

if someday you have to use a gun to defend yourself, because a turn of the destiny you get shot with your own gun, or if this one has some manufacturing defect or the ammo gets stuck because the machines werent properly calibrated or something.

To address your points in a methodical fashion...

1) Getting shot with your own gun-- unlikely to the point of statistical impossibility. In my several years of study of civilian carry of handguns (where this issue seems to most come into play), I've never heard of a civilian being disarmed in the course of thwarting an assault. This is probably because the gun stays concealed until it clears leather, and there's pretty much not enough time for a perp's OODA loop* to deal with this new development before you're sighted in (unless he already has a gun on you, in which case all bets are off). At that point, the assailant will either turn tail or continue to fight, but regardless you've got your pistol out and ready to go. Is there a miniscule risk of a weapon grab? Probably. But it's nowhere near enough to outweigh the safety benefits of carrying a gun, not by a long shot. As an aside, I can't blame you for feeling that way, since a lot of movies make it such that guns malfunction/are grabbed/get knocked away/etc. to make things more exciting. Hey, a two-minute martial arts fight scene just isn't as epic when one of the combatants is ventilated before you can say "John Moses Browning."

2) Ammo and firearm malfunctions-- again, incredibly unlikely. This is also massively exaggerated by Hollywood for dramatic effect, so the misconception is understandable. Just as an example, a few years back a firearms instructor took a Smith and Wesson M&P9 handgun and put more than sixty thousand rounds through it... with just two misfires and three parts breakages (http://pistol-training.com/archives/985). To put things in perspective, that's more than 1200 BOXES of ammo. And even when malfunctions do occur, they're generally quite quick to clear-- as in, in less than a second. Now perhaps your gun wasn't made well; that could certainly present an issue. This is why, before you start carrying a gun, the accepted "break-in" period is around 500 rounds to make sure your pistol doesn't have any functioning issues, and a further 100-200 rounds with your carry ammo of choice to make sure it and your gun play well together-- to say nothing of additional practice to make sure you can run the gun well. But let's just say you do all that, and an unexpected and difficult-to-clear malfunction/breakage DOES come up. What's a guy to do? Grab the backup gun (BUG)! Seriously, a lot of police officers and civilians carry a smaller, lighter BUG in case their first gun malfunctions, gets dropped, etc. The odds of both your primary carry piece and BUG crapping out are effectively nonexistent... it could happen, sure, but as in point 1) the safety benefits still overwhelmingly outweigh the teeny tiny risk.

Gun-carriers, being generally realistic and risk-minded types, do take these things into account and attempt to deal with them accordingly.

DingoVolf: First of all, *twitch*.

To continue, let me shamelessly lift a quote from an article at one of my favorite websites, thetruthaboutguns.com:

The Truth About Guns wrote:

Cars aren’t really made to take you to the mall or carry you to work. Sounds stupid, I know, but think about it…if the purpose of owning a car was defined by each trip, we’d have a multitude of potentialities, one for each time you sit down and buckle up. No, the true reason cars exist is that they are vehicles, a group of machines whose purpose is to convert some sort of energy into motive power. That’s the most basic, lowest common denominator we can wrap our brains around. At this fundamental level, you can’t pigeonhole them as transportation devices; a car is a vehicle, and vehicles have other purposes than transportation (think exercise bikes, pleasure cruisers, or the Vomit Comet). You didn’t buy that F-150 to haul your dirtbike into the woods, you bought it so you can fill it with gas, initiate combustion and roll. For whatever purpose. Let’s look at how this application of fundamental purpose can be applied to why we own guns . . .

Guns can kill, yes. You could say that’s their reason for existence. But like cars, guns have other purposes, from putting holes in paper to satisfying your inner child’s need to blow stuff up. What then is the fundamental purpose of the gun? Any classification that frames a gun as a weapon is flawed. Knives can also be weapons, yet they’re great for everything from carpentry to cooking to camping. A knife’s fundamental purpose is to cut. Likewise, a gun’s reason for being is to fire a projectile. A gun is a machine; anything else implies intent.

When considering laws restricting gun use, we have to look at the issue from that fundamental position – that guns aren’t just for killing; they serve many masters. This is important; too many groups label the gun a killing machine. Sure, shooting living things may be the most popular use for them, but it’s not the sole reason for their existence any more than an automobile’s sole purpose is to take you to work.

To put it in more practical terms, consider a few different examples. The Beretta I do action shooting stuff with is basically the same thing as the US military's M9. This would seem to fairly label it as a combat arm made for killing. But. The only time that thing ever gets unlocked and loaded up is on the range, rendering it useless for anything but competition-- intent is determined by use far more than design. To continue, let's take a .22LR Olympic target pistol-- it fires a tiny, low-power round; it's heavy; it's designed solely for punching ludicrously small holes in paper targets at long range. However, if I load one up and stick it in my pants for self-defense usage... its intent has become something else entirely, hasn't it? It would also make a perfectly serviceable gun for hunting small game, for that matter. Or what about an archetypal pump shotgun, the Remington 870? With a long barrel and magazine plugged to two rounds, it's perfect for skeet and trap shooting as well as bird hunting. With a shorter barrel and extended magazine (easily swappable), it's ideal for home defense and/or 3-gun competitions. Same firearm, five different intents (only two of which involve killing things). Think about butcher knives... they're not designed to cut meat per se, they're designed to cut, period. What you do with the cutting capability, the intent, is still entirely up to the user. While the knife has been configured with an optimal usage profile (cutting meat), just like our Olympic pistol, it's more than capable of being repurposed. Similarly, a beer bottle can be an entirely useful fighting instrument once shattered over a table, even though it's not designed for that.

I guess what I'm saying is that for an object to have a true and fundamental purpose (not in the political or legal sense, but in the philosophical sense), it must never be capable of being used in such a manner as to violate that purpose. Therefore, a gun's purpose can't be killing things-- virtually every firearm can be used in some other fashion. No, a gun's only true purpose is to fire a projectile.

Don't think I'm disagreeing with the safety/maturity/respect for guns portion of your post, though. +1 on all counts there.

And for everyone who thinks carrying a gun is crazy and risky... well, I'll have to make a post explaining the rationality of that decision later. I'm going to have to pull the homework card for now.

Stay frosty, everyone.GunRacer

*Observe, Orient, Decide, Act: the four stages of reaction. First you see what's happening, orient yourself towards or away from it, decide on what action you're going to take, and then take that action. A man's brain can't go through the full OODA loop in the time it take to draw a handgun, even from under clothing. Reflexes are another thing, but most criminals aren't going to try and mug or assault somebody they assume is packing, so they won't be expecting it. Ergo they won't be reflexively prepared for it.

Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:38 pm

Sarnoff

Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:33 amPosts: 80Location: Boring NC

Re: Gun Topic #Bang bAng baNg banG

You guys got any tips on getting a breech plug out of a muzzle loader?Also I was thinking when I finally get a nice gun to retire my Tradition Yukon by turning it into a hand cannon. Is that legal, stupid, dangerous, or a good idea?

GunRacer I feel like the NRA would love you. That is a very interesting post you wrote.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the breech plug business; my (admittedly limited) knowledge of firearm manipulation is confined to cartridge-based stuff. But I do think I can answer your more general questions on cutting down your rifle: in order of asking, no, yes, no, probably not. To further clarify, we must enter that dark void from which few return-- federal firearms classification laws. Yaaaaaaaaay.

Okay, so a modern firearm (which your gun is, by virtue of its 209 shotgun primer ignition*) has to meet several different criteria to stay legal. Let's start with rifles. Here's the ATF definition of such:

The term “rifle” is defined by 26 U.S.C. 5845(c) and 27 CFR 479.11 as “a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed cartridge."

The legal limit on overall length is a minimum of 26" AND a minimum barrel length of 16". If either number is reduced below that, the gun gets classified as a short-barreled rifle (SBR); to legally acquire one you need to purchase a $200 tax stamp, fill out some irritating paperwork, and then wait for about six months while the glacially-slow ATF gets around to your application. Once that's done, and assuming you don't have a criminal record, you can get an SBR (but only one; every SBR needs its own application). There are also some very specific regulations about adding an additional serial number to satisfy the requirements of the NFA (the law that pretty much all full-autos and short-barreled rifles/shotguns fall under). Here's the crazy bit, though-- if a gun is produced without a stock, it's a pistol (since no stock pretty well indicates it's not designed to be fired from the shoulder). Even AR-15 and AK-clone pistols (with <16" barrels) can be had sans SBR license so long as they stay stockless-- but woe unto you if you put a stock on them and the .gov crew comes calling. It's the same way with "normal" pistols (e.g. revolvers, 1911s, Glocks, etc.)... if you want to put a stock on your long-barreled .44 Magnum, it becomes an SBR (assuming that it falls under the magic numbers of 16 and 26 discussed earlier) and requires a license. Vertical foregrips, interestingly enough, are also felonious to attach to handguns (again, of ANY type) without the SBR stamp. Unless the foregrip in question is the Magpul AFG, which is apparently okay because it's angled (!?). Oh, and any time you want to travel with your SBR, you need to let the ATF know. *twitch*

But wait, there's more!

A stockless AR-15 pistol is fine and dandy per the feds (unless it has a foregrip, unless the foregrip is the AFG). With a stock, it needs an SBR stamp (fair enough). With both a stock and a long barrel, though, it's perfectly legal with no additional paperwork, as it doesn't fall under SBR criteria (makes sense). It can also be restored to its pistol form whenever the owner wants without any legal worries. But any time a gun manufactured as a rifle is reduced below 16 & 26, it's an SBR, period-- even if it's stockless and indistinguishable from an identical, legal pistol version (wait what). If you can believe it, short-barreled shotgun laws are even more complicated!

*tears hair out*

I think it's pretty obvious a budget muzzleloader would be the exact LAST gun you'd want to spend the effort and money on SBR-izing, no? If you wanted to keep the barrel and overall length above our magic numbers, though, you should be fine. Making a "16 & 26" muzzleloading carbine would be perfectly legal, if absolutely pointless.

I suppose the NRA might like me (just a little...), but all I do is call it like I see it. I hope you found my previous post informative and/or thought-provoking!

Well... I didn't know I could potentially illegally modify my unregisterable "stick". So laws about modding guns still apply to muzzle loaders even if the ATF doesn't seem to care about them or even treat them as firearms? And modding a muzzle loader enough can make it so you have to register it?I guess that kills my plans of a hand cannon, still would there be any advantage to sawing the barrel down a bit?

Also do you know why the ATF cares so little about muzzle loaders? They still seem potentially quite dangerous to me, yet buying one seemed almost criminally easy.

Well... I didn't know I could potentially illegally modify my unregisterable "stick". So laws about modding guns still apply to muzzle loaders even if the ATF doesn't seem to care about them or even treat them as firearms? And modding a muzzle loader enough can make it so you have to register it?

As to illegal modifications-- I would strongly suggest skimming over the THR thread linked in my previous post. Basically, because your muzzleloader uses modern 209 shotgun primers to substitute for more finicky and harder-to-find "true" percussion caps, that qualifies it as a modern rifle for the purposes of the National Firearms Act (so again, ya gotta keep it above 16 & 26)... but in every other legal sense, it's considered an "antique firearm." Go figure.

Sarnoff wrote:

I guess that kills my plans of a hand cannon, still would there be any advantage to sawing the barrel down a bit?

No. Since frontstuffers are only good for hunting anyways, all you're doing is losing out on muzzle velocity and sight radius (the distance between front and rear sights; more is better for accurate shooting). Plus, unless you have the barrel job done by a competent gunsmith, it'll kill your rifle's accuracy. Unless the barrel is cut perfectly straight and the muzzle is re-crowned, you'll have a hard time hitting the broad side of a barn-- from the inside! And by the way, barrel cutting and re-crowning isn't free, either. Expect to pay as much as you did for the rifle.

Sarnoff wrote:

Also do you know why the ATF cares so little about muzzle loaders? They still seem potentially quite dangerous to me, yet buying one seemed almost criminally easy.

Because they're borderline useless for anything but hunting. You get one shot, they're not too accurate, they're pretty short-ranged, and they leave a massive plume of smoke that screams, "THE SHOOTER IS OVER HERE!" Honestly, if we're talking about capability to inflict the most violence possible before being stopped, I'd be more worried about crowbars or butcher knives. Something worth noting is that even in European countries with far stricter gun control regimes than we have here, muzzleloaders are still often "cash and carry." It's easier for a criminal to pick up a cheap pistol off the street (even in Great Britain, where civilian ownership of all modern handguns is totally outlawed) than to deal with the hassle of a muzzleloader.

Also, if you're a felon, the action is criminally easy: it's a federal (and state) offense to sell a gun to somebody who isn't legal to own one. Why the ATF doesn't require background checks/paperwork for private sales is definitely a topic for another post, but there are some surprising, interesting, and sensible reasons why that's the case.

Sarnoff wrote:

unregisterable

Oh, and a common misconception here is that guns need to be federally registered. They don't (unless they're a short-barreled rifle/shotgun, "destructive device," full-auto, etc.). Now, some states may have registration systems, but I don't believe NC is on that list. Here's how we do it in the States: there's a national "master list" of criminals, the mentally ill, and unsavory types. If you're not on that list, you're legal to buy a gun-- the law-breakers are the ones registered, not inanimate objects. That said, the instant background check system has basically been (ab)used as a back door method of registration (the hows and whys of that are a whole 'nother ball of wax). However, private sales of non-NFA firearms require no background check-- at least at the federal level; again, state/local laws sometimes differ in that regard. So basically, since you bought the gun in a private sale, no paperwork is required by the feds. That also goes for cartridge-based non-NFA pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

Whew!GunRacer

Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:58 pm

Sarnoff

Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:33 amPosts: 80Location: Boring NC

Re: Gun Topic #Bang bAng baNg banG

Thanks for clearing things up a bit GunRacer(Nonlawyer).

I am thinking of getting an AK or cheap 12 gauge in a year or so, anybody got any recommendations?

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